Hinchcliffe steps strong day for Andretti

The 2016 pole winner, in only his third outing of the year, averaged 224,526mph in the Genesys car at his 35th^th of 80 laps in the afternoon session to teammate Marco Andretti by 0.18mph.

Equally impressive was his no-tow speed of 220,732mph, a mere 0.003mph slower than teammate and 2014 Indy winner Ryan Hunter-Reay, who finished the day in the fourth fastest.

The non-Andretti runner-up in the top four was 2008 Indy winner Scott Dixon in the Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, while Fernando Alonso made a strong comeback to the Speedway, setting the fifth fastest time – and the top Chevrolet -runner – just ahead of Josef Newgarden in the fastest of the Team Penske cars.

Although Newgarden’s Indy-winning teammates Helio Castroneves, Simon Pagenaud and Will Power were in 10 under^th, 12^th and 23^rd respectively, NBC Sports revealed that Power, Castroneves and Newgarden had average speeds above 30 laps, as one full stint.

Top rookie honor went to Alex Palou of Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh in eighth place, while Conor Daly was top of the traditional pole-challenging team of Ed Carpenter Racing.

Tony Kanaan took a run in Dalton Kellett’s car just to assure the Canadian rookie that everything was fine with the car, and Kellett completed his Rookie Orientation practice well, which he had not done at all in the early afternoon session.

Their teammate Charlie Kimball had a somewhat alarming brush with the Turn 2 wall – on corner entrance, interestingly – but that was the closest one came to causing a yellow. The other periods of caution were for rail inspections.

After the end of practice, Ben Hanley was allowed to run in the DragonSpeed ​​car, which had not turned round all day, only on track for a shakedown and his Refresher course.

Weather permitting, action will be resumed this morning at 11 a.m. local (Eastern) time with six-and-a-half hours available for all 33 rounds.

Indy 500 practice Day 1